Oh, I Think So

I have five days to decide the rest of my life.  I have to submit my request to take the retirement package by July 3rd or let the chips fall where they may.  What a conundrum!  What a pickle!  What a piece of shit situation!  I am okay with being me but this week, what a pickle! Years ago when "24" was on, an episode would end in such a mind-boggling bit of what-the-fuckery that I would say, "OH MY GOD!" right out loud.  I would go to work the next day and my dear friend, Michael, would look to me and say, "What a pickle!" Yeah, this is like that.

With the weird events of late and things coming out of the mouths of both Donald Trump and Mike Pence that made me say, "Huh?" right out loud to the TV, I looked up the definition of magical thinking.  This is what I found. Magical thinking  is the belief that one's own  thoughts , wishes, or desires can influence the external world. It is common in very young children. A four-year-old child, for example, might believe that after wishing for a pony, one will appear at his or her house. So Trump and Pence have been saying there is no need for Covid-19 testing as the statistics would be much lower if no one tested for it.  Covid-19 is the pony and Trump and Pence have their own saddles. Jimmy Fallon gave some very good examples of it in a monologue and I have a personal one.  If I don't get on the scale, then I weigh just what I did five years ago! If only my pants would cooperate.

We've all been unfortunately tossed into a situation where we are forced to decide something faster than we'd every imagined.  Stay or go?  Yes or no?  Burial or cremation?  Baked or mashed?  Now or later?  An alcoholic beverage or nothing, thanks? This week, my job advised they are again offering an early retirement option, for the second time in their history.  I am very close to when I wanted to retire -- just a year and a half away! -- at which point I was going to get some other job and work until I didn't want to do it any longer.  I have three weeks to decide if I want to retire and take five months of compensation plus money to supplement insurance or stay and risk getting laid off and then have nothing.  I have to decide the next few decades of my life (I hope!) within three weeks and I am not ready to do so.  I will have to get a new doctor as mine sees no one using Medicare and I like my doctor.  I have to call my derma...

This time in history has devolved into a very unspeakable time but I've found some words.  Trumpy probably had a party when he realized he didn't have to make something up to take attention away from the fact that 108,000+ Americans had died from Covid-19.  The jobs report came out and he had the sheer freaking stupid goddamn audacity to say that George Floyd would be happy because the jobs report was so good.  How dare he even say Mr. Floyd's name? Jobs for African-Americans went down, you fucking unprincipled yutz.  You know what would make Mr. Floyd happy?  Being alive!  Not having to die a murderous, tortured death so horrible that he called for his mother!  You know what would make me happy?  You resigning in disgrace, Trumpy, just like Nixon.  He would have been removed from office had his impeachment gone to trial so he resigned in disgrace.  He would gone to prison but Gerald Ford committed political suicide and pardoned Nixon. ...

There are no words.

Who tells you "no"? When you ask someone to tell you the truth, do you really want the truth? You can eat anything right now.  What is it? You have to give up one thing you like right now.  What is it? You have to flee right now and have not put together a bag you can just grab and go.  What 10 things will you bring? Time to have something natural chez vous.  Plants or cut flowers? Get going!  On vacation!  NOW!  Where will you go right now. You can only wear one color for the rest of your life but it can't be black or white.  What is it? SOMEONE TOOK ALL YOUR BOOKS!!!!!  Which one will you miss most? Someone will pay to have that thing done that you've always wanted done.  What is the one thing?   How cool is this picture? Yes, semi-low level fog at sunrise but what lurks below?

If you had more power than almost anyone in the world and there were laws that governed the place where you lived but you liked to do things your own way like a petulant child, would you be an adult or would you remain the petulant child? Who do you allow to tell you no?  How do they need to phrase it?